


this world of blue

by ninemoons42



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Actor Noctis Lucis Caelum, Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, El Dia de la Rosa, El Dia del Llibre, Fantasy Barcelona, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, La Diada di Sant Jordi, M/M, Photographer Prompto Argentum, a rose for love and a book forever, saint george's day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-22 21:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18535714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: As he wanders down slightly-familiar streets, Noctis realizes that -- there's more to this trip, to this old city and its strange old buildings, than just summer-haze and the bright blazing sun.More to this -- like flowers he's never seen before, like vivid remnants of the past -- and like the wild hopeful light in the eyes of the young man he's fallen in love with, so suddenly and so vividly.





	this world of blue

**Author's Note:**

> My 23 April fic, for this year. I wanted to write this pairing because last year's AU was really all about the Gladnis. :)
> 
> \---
> 
> My annual celebration of the feast of Saint George (yes, as in the guy that killed the dragon), following the manner of people in Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia. See also the Wikipedia article [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George%27s_Day_\(Spain\)), and my fics posted in previous years [here](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/tagged/saint-george's-day).

The glass he’s left out on his nightstand is -- not even anywhere near cool, when he finally emerges from the shelter of his net-fine sheets and blankets, when he finally pushes himself out of his own little fort of pillows. Even in his hand it feels off, uncomfortable, as if lukewarm was more than just a temperature-related sensation -- like there’s an odd slick weirdness to its weight in his hand, to the way it feels when he puts the glass to his lips.

But he drains the glass dry -- he has to -- and only later does he make a face, after he’s forced himself to swallow -- it’s almost enough to force him upright and shambling into the bathroom, and he doesn’t start feeling like himself until he’s finally shivering under the fierce hiss of the shower, turned all the way to icy-cold like he doesn’t normally do, when he’s on the move, when he wakes up in all kinds of strange bedrooms.

The relief that he gets out of that shower is stupidly short-lived, though -- whew, the heat, it’s more than crushing -- that hits him even from behind the safety of thick curtains, of tinted windows -- he can almost see the shimmer of it on the deserted streets, only three floors below. He can already see the glare of it, catching on the waves, on the morning-surf.

And the fact that he’s looking out over a more or less deserted beach -- that makes him actually wonder, glad for the distraction -- where is everybody?

Okay, granted, he’s not sure he remembers this city very well, if he can’t remember it without the context of busy afternoons and people gossiping beneath the colorful store-awnings and their shadows. If he can’t remember the stream of people heading through the beachside neighborhoods, stopping amid cheerful displays, amid the little bits of flea market on what feels like every other street-corner. If he can’t even remember -- that child, from the last time he’d been here, skateboarding intrepid and daring over the cobblestones and the long fringed tail of their headscarf streaming behind them like a brave bright flag.

If the city streets are empty, if the beach isn’t exactly bursting with people soaking up the sun and the breeze and the salt, then -- what is he doing, he wonders. Why is he buttoning up a shirt and why is he looking in his bags for the floppy hat he’d picked up on a whim, in the dead of the night in an almost quiet airport? Why is he making faces at his knees, which are exposed by the too-trendy tattered holes in his jeans?

A small leather bag that he can wear at his hip, buckles and straps and snaps keeping the necessary and important things safe, and then he’s making his way down to the lobby of this hotel, wreathed in summer’s-heart silence.

“Hello,” the woman at the front desk says, very quietly.

Probably she doesn’t want to disturb the cat in its handsome fur, where it’s stretched out over almost the entirety of her workstation and the one next to it besides. Gray-on-gray stripes all over, except for the solid-black section in its long sleek tail.

He thinks it might have been the same cat that had almost followed him to his room, the night he’d arrived in this city, after he’d gotten through the little ceremonies of checking in. Bright inquisitive pale-green eyes -- arresting when he’d first caught sight of them -- and the tufts of fur on the peaks of its ears, which he can see even now, in its somnolent grace.

“Back later,” he whispers, in reply. “You don’t have to make up the room.”

“Yes sir.”

And of course he picks up his usual shadows the second he steps onto the sidewalk outside the hotel -- but right now, on this sun-baked street, he’s almost grateful for the company.

The man’s wearing neon-pink sunglasses, and the woman’s toenails are painted in equally loud yellow-and-blue polka dots, and he rolls his eyes at them, fondly. “Don’t suppose you finally figured out why there are no people going around at this hour,” he asks, following their lead.

“Same guess as yesterday, and the day before that, so on and so forth,” the man says, pulling a smartphone out of his pocket and tapping at its screen. “Climbing temps. Look at today’s, wow.”

“No complaints here, I’d rather be warm,” he says, rolling his shoulders under the sunlight. Too many pops and cracks, and he’s still steeling himself for the possibility of a massage at some point. 

“Thanks for the trip,” the woman wisecracks, even as she hunts through her pockets for a large hairpin, and winds her braided hair into a makeshift bun. “Thanks for the heatwave.”

“You’re welcome?” he says, and responds in kind when she pulls a horrible face at him.

Okay, well, here’s the other reason he’s grateful for impulse-buying the hat: because the man sidesteps him into an alley and the woman snags the brim down over his eyes, over his face, and then they’re leaning in and pretending to study a map that he’s pulled up on his own smartphone -- and the whispers and the telephoto lenses and the suspicious faces clear away, slowly, streaming off from the opposite corner across the street from the hotel.

He looks up and feels a little sheepish. “Okay. We stand out here like fuckin’ sore thumbs.”

“Hush you,” the woman says. “Long as we’re not giving anyone trouble you can do whatever you want. It’s called being on vacation or haven’t you heard?”

He makes a face at her again. “I know exactly what that is, but now you’re working just because people can’t keep their fucking eyes to themselves.”

“That’s their problem, not yours. And you’re easy work,” the man says. “Don’t mind us. We’re okay with looking after you here.”

“ _Because_ it’s a vacation, and we’re still getting paid,” the woman says, and then she gives him a V-sign. “What’s not to like?”

“I don’t get you,” he says, but it’s not the first time they’ve started this conversation -- he knows he can let it go in favor of the quiet rumbling in his stomach, and also -- the alert that pops up on his smartphone, that has nothing to do with food. “Did you at least find someplace nice to eat?”

“Fish place?” the man asks, after he looks like he thinks it over for a minute.

“Fish place,” the woman agrees.

So he follows, half-mystified -- this time the people who whisper in his wake are little children skipping rope in the little shadowed nooks next to their houses, or perhaps it’s the group of people in school uniforms and jerseys who are arguing over a chessboard and the pieces still left in play, right on the sidewalk with their feet in the dusty leaf-scattered gutters. A cluster of older men and women, lined faces turned up peacefully to the bright sunlight -- but as he passes a celebratory roar suddenly rises from a book-sized radio, half-hidden next to a potted plant and its spray of bright yellow flowers, and one of the women lifts and waves a small flag in blue-and-white chevrons.

He blinks, and moves on, and the woman quickly directs him to an outdoor table somewhere down the middle of the next block -- a table beneath the shelter of a maroon-striped umbrella, and the awning that shivers in the quick passage of a warm sea-breeze -- and he flaps his hand listlessly in the direction of his face. “Ice?” he asks, hopefully.

“Here,” the man says, offering him a huge paper cup, and the water in it tastes faintly of lemon and lime and something very much like berries, but all he’s really after is the brain-freeze, and he drinks, and sighs, laughs softly at himself, because the relief floods through him like a welcome blow. 

Snort of laughter next to him: not the man, not the woman.

He very nearly goes tense before he recognizes the sun and its merciless light, its shadowless glare, falling onto -- what?

Striped shirt, orange and blue, saturated and bright. The khaki shorts are hemmed in neon-green fake-camo print, and that’s to say nothing of the yellow-and-black running flats. 

He’s going to positively disappear next to that explosion of vibrant color -- and that’s not even taking the dusty-blond hair into consideration, or the blue-purple eyes that can’t be completely hidden by sleek sunglasses. The freckle-arcs on cheeks and forehead and along the sharp angle of the jaw. The black mesh of a knapsack -- and the fact that he can actually recognize the camera, deceptively small for such a high-end thing.

“Hi,” that person says, as he steps onto the patio of the restaurant. “This seat taken?”

Before he can answer -- the woman steps out of the open door, laden down with takeout boxes. “Hey blondie!”

“Hi Crowe!”

“Good thing I ordered extra, or you can have this one’s food,” Crowe laughs.

He rolls his eyes, shakes his head. Doesn’t stop the grin from growing, until he feels the lines in his face grow deeper, pull together. 

“Aww, no, that’s mean!” And, back to him: “I think the sun likes you.”

“Thanks, I think,” and he nearly makes his usual joke about his own name. “Nice colors.”

Grin, as bright as the afternoon all around them. “Thanks, I picked them all out myself. I think the clash really goes with,” and he points to his own face.

“Prompto, hey,” and the man takes the last seat at the table. “You’re having the extra spicy thing aren’t you. About burned my throat out when I had it yesterday.”

“Hey Nyx,” he hears Prompto say. “Try the -- chicken thing next time. I promise it’s not spicy.”

“Okay, I’ll take your word for it.”

He checks his own box -- fish and fries and a nearly-perfect tartar sauce -- and he pushes the green garnish aside, squeezes the wedge of lemon over, and dives right in, and for a moment the others stop talking, too, intent on their food. 

“Here.” Quiet voice and quiet movement, at his elbow. “Trade?”

“Sure,” he says, and he shovels over half of his fries in exchange for half a dozen huge onion rings.

Brush of fingertips against his, that sends a different kind of bright heat jolting down his nerves.

Crowe finishes eating first -- and she tips a hat she’s not wearing in his direction, as she steps away -- he tracks her movement as she crosses the street and pretends to look interested in a display of lace and folding fans and golden bracelets, and he actually recognizes the marque in that shop-window.

Nyx dusts off his hands, and goes over to join her after he’s polished off his box, and he watches them act like they’re a couple strolling off their lunch, and wishes he could get them in front of the camera with him, or perhaps in his place.

But he’s also grateful that they’re gone, Nyx and Crowe both, because that means he can reach for Prompto’s hand under the table. “Hello,” he says, gently.

“Hello Noctis,” is the equally soft response. “Can I tell you this is still weird? Not bad weird. Let me repeat myself.”

“I know you said it yesterday. And the day before that. I’m still going to apologize.”

“It’s okay.” Why is Prompto already capable of this kind of understanding? “I mean. I trust you and your people even when they’re not here, and also those two.”

“I don’t know why you do. But thank you for it anyway,” he says, and he can’t quite pull him in close, so he settles for brushing his fingertips against Prompto’s arm, writing something without ink. _Good enough? Is this okay?_

“Yeah,” and he’s almost certain the smile that goes with that one word is the answer to the questions he can’t ask. “Ready?”

And he follows Prompto off the patio and down an almost-familiar block. The sunlight is -- starting to change, he thinks, as he watches their footsteps, their shadows moving along the pavement and cobblestones. There’s some kind of golden quality creeping into it -- and he glances in Prompto’s direction.

There it is: nothing at all like harsh floodlights, like the high-beams they have to use on night shoots. The gentle quality of this illumination lighting up Prompto’s arms. Highlighting his freckles and the lean shapes of his muscles, and the faint shadows of his veins, where they’re especially visible in his wrists. 

It’s the change in the wind that clues him in -- they’re no longer doubling back in the direction of the hotel, and he thinks he’s starting to smell -- dust. Not the kind that builds on bookshelves or his collection of video games, but the kind of dust that builds around cared-for houses, around well-loved ruins. 

Old fallen mortar and aged wood, worn away inevitably in the passage of time, reduced inexorably into bits and pieces and -- drifting away.

The stones at his feet now look like bricks, if bricks were made out of seashells and round-edged cloudy glass, and he looks up: and right on the corner that they’re walking towards -- him and Prompto in the lead, and Nyx and Crowe trailing carefully behind -- is a tumbledown house, and it’s _beautiful_ , he thinks. Its entire facade is overgrown in a lace of dark vines and climbing roots. Hand-sized leaves, and here and there the yellow-green of buds. 

“What,” he starts.

“Yeah, I admit it, I brought you here to look at that first,” and Prompto is gesturing to the ruin with his camera. “We’re almost in the old town.”

“I can see that. What was it,” he asks, softly.

“I actually have no idea. People guess, around here. Since it’s just those walls -- ”

And Prompto’s right: through the huge gaping holes where the windows must have been, Noctis can only see -- heaps of stone, and patches of other growing things, and not much of anything else. “What, did a bomb fall on it?”

Blink, blink, next to him. “And here I thought you didn’t know much about this place. That’s what you said.”

“I don’t!” he says. “I was just guessing -- ”

He gets a grin for that, though it’s fleeting, and maybe it’s easy to understand why. “Yeah it got bombed. And when I said I have no idea what this building was before then, I mean, I don’t know what it was on the last day it was standing. Something that big, could have been a shop, could have been offices, could have been someone’s home. Maybe a school or a bank or -- whatever, right? We can only guess? But, but yeah. It got bombed. This entire place did,” and he watches Prompto sweep out a hand to indicate the rest of the area. “Everyone else rebuilt, but no one ever touched this place again.”

“Sorta creepy,” he says.

“Not just sorta. The stories people tell about it -- brr, I sometimes still have nightmares about the things I’d hear from -- my landlady, from her friends, the kids who pass when they’re coming back from school or something. Some of those sounded -- like I could almost believe them. But, me, when I’m sober and I’m looking at it and I have this,” and Prompto lifts his camera back into Noctis’s line of sight. “I think it just looks so alone. Sad. Left behind.” 

“Yeah,” and Noctis peers at the fragmented molding over the door -- or at least he thinks it’s the door, as it’s the opening dead center in the ruined facade. “Haunted?”

“Probably. I just said, stories, right? But I never stuck around long enough to find out, and I don’t want to trespass either.”

It’s a small relief when Prompto moves on, and he follows, and their footsteps pick up speed. 

“Why are we the only people on these streets,” he asks, after they cross another intersection, and the only traffic they have to deal with is a group of people in skirts, chattering about -- Noctis thinks -- a book, or a series of books, if he’s only got the character names that he heard to go by. 

Didn’t he see -- something like a spec script with many of those names, getting passed around online somewhere?

“Give it another forty-five minutes,” is the easy response -- followed by a blink in his direction. “I actually expected you to be happy about it. You finally landed in a place where people sleep off the hottest part of the day. Your kind of place.”

He chuckles, and pokes Prompto gently in the ribs. “Cabin fever, you might have heard of it.”

“Well when you put it that way,” and then all the thoughts fly clean out of his head because Prompto’s looking at his watch, and taking his hand, and tugging. “Aw shit, come on, I don’t want you to miss it, it’s not far and I don’t want us to be late!”

Running, suddenly, and he’s grateful for his boots, he’s grateful to be able to keep up with Prompto at all -- they round a corner, dodge around a flock of gray-winged birds and he can hear their angry chorus all the way down the block, he can hear Crowe yelling back at them -- 

And then they turn another corner and he feels exactly like his first day on his first set, like walking straight into a door, like all the breath’s been knocked out of his lungs.

He nearly drops to his knees, and -- he’s stupidly grateful for Prompto’s arm around his shoulders. For Prompto’s quiet words. “Yeah. Look at -- smaller bits if the whole thing makes you feel strange. I know I do when I look at it.”

“You see it every day, don’t you,” he makes himself say.

“And that tells you something, if I still have to be -- slow, trying to take it in.”

If he had words for it, maybe, he thinks. Sort of. The world’s unraveled for him right now and all he can see are -- the stones, the shapes of the stones, the carved lines and the shadows they all cast, in the shifting quality of the light.

Light going golden and cool at the same time -- the long slanted angles of the sunlight, streaming into the complicated nooks and crannies of the face of the building -- he can almost comprehend the sheer span of it, the fact that it occupies such a sprawl of an area, because that’s what the websites told him, that’s what the Internet had told him, on the way over.

What is hard to imagine is -- the _presence_ of this thing that Prompto has brought him to see. Bigger than every single one of the shadows it casts, he thinks, and in this light it seems to cast ten shadows for each actual peak or height that it has. Taller than any dream he could have ever had of skyscrapers, whether fictional, or the actual ones he grew up in and around. A presence that soars higher than its towers -- even though he can see the crumbling falling edges of the peaks, even though he thinks he can already understand how this facade can seem damaged already, like the wind has been at it for years.

He could almost fool himself into thinking the building is breathing -- he could almost convince himself that he’s hearing the slow deep rattle of it, even as he himself takes deep even breaths, and tries to calm his heart. 

“What,” and he could bless Nyx, for speaking, for breaking the spell. “What in holy fuck is _that_?”

“Holy is about right -- or it was, until, what, fifty years ago? I don’t know what the word is for -- making a place that was sacred, not sacred any more,” and Prompto sounds thoughtful, even though he also seems to be bouncing on his heels, on his soles. Words falling out of time with his movements, words that sound steady somehow. “I don’t mean that this place is evil now. Or whatever the opposite of sacred is. What I mean is, this place is just an ordinary building now.”

“That is the total exact opposite of ordinary,” and that’s Crowe, sounding almost respectful. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“Nothing like it in the whole world,” he hears Prompto say. “The story I heard is, the -- architect? Designer? I never can tell the difference. That person -- laid out all the plans for it and then went insane, and when they died they were buried somewhere in the foundations of the building. Or was it one of the hidden crypts? Lots of conflicting stories about that one. I don’t even know what the god or gods in there were supposed to be, or if the building was supposed to honor somebody. Not the architect, but clearly they thought they had to honor something or someone. Too bad they didn’t even live to see this thing finished.”

“I can’t imagine,” he mutters. “I mean, this thing looks unreal and we’re looking at it, so what did it look like when it wasn’t -- falling apart?”

Shrug, out of the corner of his eye. “There’re paintings, and old photographs. Which reminds me. Let me know when you guys can -- move, okay? Because there’s something else I want to show you.”

He has to shake himself a little, just so he can make sure his feet are still on the ground and his thoughts can follow the -- sweetly inexorable pull on his hand. Fingers tangled firmly with his, and an encouraging small smile.

One foot in front of the other, he thinks. One foot in front of the other, and he can try to take in the bits and pieces of the building out of the corner of his eye, so he doesn’t get overwhelmed again. Here is a grand sweeping staircase, and he wonders how many people he could fit on each step, if he made them stand shoulder to shoulder. Here is a wing-shape, a sleek feather-tufted body perched atop long lean legs, and the head and its beak tilted gently and inquisitively out at the world. Here are four human-shapes, and he could get lost in the thought of the stone of their bodies, carved to resemble the folds and drapes of cloaks and coats and hats, and who knows what else. Here are the tall, tall empty frames of stone, the soaring points of spearhead-shaped spaces ten times taller than he is, maybe twenty times, and he can’t imagine the amount of glass he might need to fill even one of them with beautiful colors.

Crowe and Nyx might be whispering behind him, might be gesturing to each other -- he can’t really see them in the world except as movements, except as their shadows growing longer along with his.

“Here, this way, come on.”

The only real thing in this world, he thinks, is Prompto, and his voice. Steady and coaxing and -- and Noctis wants to hear him all the time, wants to listen to him constantly. The words and the silence, the breathing of him, the constant pace of him. 

Strange to think they had both been absolutely still when they’d met. 

He thinks back briefly to the airport and the monotone snarl of the moving conveyor belt. The squared-off corners, the wheels turned every which way, rolling luggage and boxes wound around and around with packing tape just short of bruised as they moved in their disconsolate circles, and every now and then hands would reach out for one shape or another, and move away. Squeak of shoes and soles on polished floors. The flickering overhead lights of the arrival hall, the lonely distant patter of the music and of the intercoms announcing arriving and departing flights.

And he can only remember regretting that he had checked his luggage instead of carrying it onto Business Class, because it had been a laughably small duffel at the end of the day, weathered into something almost pretty, despite the abuse he’s already put it through. The ribbon-lengths he’d wound clumsily onto the handles, around and around and apparently he hadn’t done them as tightly as he’d thought he had, because they’d been drooping and unraveling, once the duffel had finally heaved into view.

And his had not been the only hands to reach out to the ribbon -- to the patterns of constellations and the strange colors of other planets, on grosgrain textures and shades of deep blue.

Turned out Prompto had gotten his hands on very similar ribbon, as it appeared on the conveyor belt -- braided into a long streamer, and its ends threaded into the large zipper-pulls of a slumped-over sack-bag.

Prompto’s laughter in those cursed too-early too-sleepless hours -- the same laughter he hears, now, and he turns his head and -- suffers another shock.

The blue of the ribbon. The same as the blue of these flowers that Prompto has apparently been leading them toward -- they look so much like roses to him, on first glance.

But he steps closer, caught and pinned by the waft of smoky spice and the specks of golden-red dust in the throats of each hand-sized blossom -- no, all right, they’re not roses. Different shapes on the petals, and the points on which they end.

“Wow,” he says, and he reaches out to almost touch. “Wait, can I -- ?”

Prompto’s eyes nearly disappear into the lines of his face as he points to a nearby sign; languages changing on each line, and near the middle it says: _Limit one flower per person._

“For real?” and he can’t help but laugh -- but he’s grateful, and his hands are shaking, as he reaches out to the same flower that had caught his attention.

Why he picks that one out of a garden of -- not quite identical copies -- he doesn’t know. Something about the ruffle of it, maybe. The white tips on four of the petal-points. The startling size of the flower, once he’s pinched it away, long stem and its sawtoothed leaves and the crown jewel of its actual blossom-head, big enough to overflow the entire palm of his hand. 

He steps aside in time for Nyx and Crowe to touch the flowers, and that means he has a small excuse to inch closer to Prompto. To touch shoulders with him. “They really let people do that. Take away their flowers.”

Laughter, soft and low and richly sweet. “I mean, what are they gonna do with them, let them just -- wither away?”

Point. But still. “These things aren’t rare are they?”

“’Course they are,” and maybe Prompto really is laughing at him, or just playing some kind of joke. “They grow here. Nowhere else.”

Noctis feels the blood drain from his face. Feels his hand holding the flower grow completely cold. “What.”

“But think about it. Why do they even have that sign? Why do they even let people get close enough to touch? Answer is,” and Prompto reaches out to one of the leaves on the nearest bush, rubs it between his fingers before letting it go, “this thing flowers like crazy. I would never have believed it except that -- they did a demonstration, one year. They made a short film about it. Got somebody to pick one of the smaller bushes completely clean of flowers -- she looked guilty as hell, too, looked like she was crying at the end of it -- and then, they left the cameras running.”

He shakes his head again. “Not possible.”

“Totally possible, they did it, I saw the short several times. And I know from cameras.” Prompto hefts his own. “I knew they couldn’t have made it up because they just sped up the footage, they didn’t alter it. All the flowers returned and it only took, what, ten days, twelve? The same single bush. They even brought the girl back and she looked like someone had made all her good dreams come true. Oh, man, the questions she asked. Like, _how even_ , right?

“I mean, props to them, they tried to answer her. Water, sunshine, whatever -- somehow or other the plant didn’t care what had happened to it. It flowered again, and that’s all we know. Maybe the scientific types actually understand, maybe not, but I don’t want to know that much. I just know: pretty flowers.”

“Then what are they called,” and that’s Crowe. Between her and Nyx they’ve only got the one blossom, and their hands are all but joined around it, like they’re fused together around the stem. “That’s all I want to know.”

“Storm’s heart, it says so right there,” and Noctis peers at the bottom of the sign, that Prompto points to. 

He reads the words again and again -- the phrase that Prompto had given, and then what must have been the scientific name of the flower, or the plant that had put it forth -- and it isn’t because he doesn’t believe Prompto. 

It’s the flowers he can’t believe.

And because of that disbelief, it takes him a little longer to collect his scattered thoughts, and take Prompto’s hand, and set off once again in his wake.

He maybe stumbles once or twice, when he looks too deeply into the heart of the flower and wonders at all the blues he finds in it. 

But maybe those blues, and this flower in his hand, are signs -- even though he hasn’t been looking for any, hasn’t even thought about asking for any -- that, and the fact that the next time they stop, they’re all standing on an overlook, right on the edge of the city, right on the edge of this old place and its presence, and the sun is starting to dip towards the horizon at last.

The world is stained in orange light and the warmth of that blazing sunset -- the flower, too, the storm’s heart he’s holding, all the shades of it lighting up as though it had been dipped into soft sweet flames -- and then he forgets about it when he turns to look at Prompto.

Who is smiling at the sunset, and there are emotions on his face that Noctis has never even heard or read or dreamed about before.

None of the scripts he reads could ever supply him with the words he needs to describe the way the light falls into Prompto’s hair. How it paints his cheeks in flame-colors, just bright enough to catch on his freckles instead of burning them away. How it highlights the darker strands in his hair, how it catches in the lines around his eyes and paints him in sunset-flare. 

The world could fall away from him at that moment and all Noctis would ever want to see and feel would be -- that small secret of a smile, playing clever and sharp at the corner of Prompto’s mouth.

What is he even focusing on, Noctis wonders -- tries to follow the line of Prompto’s eyes and out through the camera that he’s holding up to his face with obvious care, with obvious precision -- what is he seeing, how is he seeing it, what does it mean to him -- what is it in Prompto that senses the light in the world and gravitates toward it somehow, in the pursuit of an image, in the pursuit of a photograph --

And Noctis’s thoughts drift back gently and unstoppably towards the thing he’s been carrying all over the world with him, these three months and change of wandering from one red carpet to another, night after furious night of press cameras and spotlights blinding him, the suits and the speeches and the welter of canned questions about the meaning of this latest movie of his, this latest thing he’s helped produce nearly all the way from a sketched treatment and pencil-scribble outlines on the backs of coffee-stained notes.

Because there had been something he’d fitted into the pockets of his every pair of pressed trousers, every night -- an accessory he couldn’t have gone on without, and just the barest outlines of its spine showing. The feathered edges of the pages slowly losing their crisp outlines, softening as he’d thumbed through and left inscriptions, left words that had never really been enough to contain all his thoughts.

The same words running through his mind, now, as he unsnaps one of the pockets on his bag and -- here is that same shape. Here is that same neat binding, a little scratched now, a little worse for wear now, from sitting and standing and walking through corridors and down the aisles of all kinds of cinema-cavern places. Little scratches here and there, perhaps from the way he’s picked it up and set it down. The lingering smell of the ink he’s used on the tissue-thin pages, faint steel-dust.

There’s only one of this book in all the world, Noctis thinks.

On each page is a pale image, a pale imitation, of one of Prompto’s photographs, and there’s just enough room around each reproduction for a few short sentences, for a thought or two to be sketched in, and that’s exactly what Noctis has done: he’s recorded the world of his whirlwind, the strange days and nights and hours of his long trip, in the minutes he could steal for himself. Between interviews, between press conferences, between cocktails with some person wielding a smartphone or another. The bits and pieces he’s gathered up of himself, carefully preserved despite his own misgivings and his own little inhibitions.

And -- he knows he’s going to wind up giving the damn thing to Prompto -- that had been the whole point of the exercise, that had been the whole idea behind his putting the book together -- it’s just, how can he find the time? How can he find the opportunity?

Sun, setting fully now, as he blinks and -- the evening is setting in, in its long slow progression -- the fire in the skies banking into dark purple and the last sparks of that lambent glow -- 

Soft breath by his side. Soft laugh.

Noctis catches his breath because -- it’s now or never.

Out of the bag and -- Prompto’s hand catching around his wrist and he captures it, in turn, brushing against freckle-shadows marching over knuckles. 

And then it’s only a matter of sliding the notebook into his waiting hand, after all.

Noctis smiles, and plays absently with the storm’s-heart flower he’s still holding, as Prompto pockets his camera and pulls out his phone instead, and flips it around to shine its flashlight onto the notebook.

Really, what else could he have done, in this failing light?

What else could Noctis have expected him to do?

Not a word out of Prompto as he flips through the little pages, one-handed out of necessity, and -- he gets it quickly, of course he does, because Noctis catches the moment when he closes the notebook and opens it back again to the front page and -- holds it nearly all the way up to the tip of his nose, and that still doesn’t stop Noctis from catching how he shapes the words, how he reads the words he’s left for him on the front page, silently, once and then back around again.

“What do you think you’re doing -- reading? In the dark?”

And he keeps his front-row-center seat to the way Prompto blinks, the way his features go momentarily fierce and feral -- before he turns a fantastic smirk on Crowe, all his teeth bared to the sharp edges. “Sure. Don’t tell me you can’t?”

There’s still enough light left for Noctis to catch the entirely synchronized eye-rolls from both Nyx and Crowe -- and more than enough for him to catch the hint of the flush in Prompto’s cheek.

When the floodlights come on with audible cracks, the facade of the old sanctuary flattens out in a harsh sort of glare -- the light reflected and strengthened in the fissures somehow, unsettlingly -- and he’s glad to turn away for real, and take Prompto’s hand once again. Glad to walk away from the empty windows, that he thinks might be the eyes of the sanctuary, staring after them.

And he’s relieved, when they wade through a crowd of people streaming towards a street full of tiny restaurants, when Prompto mutters, “You really did that. This thing.”

Flash of the notebook being raised once again into Noctis’s peripheral vision.

The smile isn’t really something he can stop -- nor does he want to do so. “I hope you like it.”

“I don’t like it at all -- I fucking love it -- but what kind of a question is that? And -- why would you do something like this?”

“I need a reason?” he asks, and he knows he’s only half-joking. 

“Noctis.” Prompto’s glowing, though, even before they pass beneath a lattice of string-lights, and their chase of red and blue and green, in subtly shifting patterns.

“I should be thanking you,” he says, softly, watching the lights play in Prompto’s eyes. “I went through your portfolio a couple of times over, during the whole trip. You gave me so much to think about. You gave me the right kind of distraction -- you let me escape the whole grind of it.”

“You tried to make an important movie.”

“I don’t know if the press saw that, is the problem,” he says. “They had questions about -- me and the director, me and everyone else on the set, they didn’t want to ask me about where the story was coming from. So weird, you’d think they might have at least wanted to ask about me, writing. Or trying to write. Kind of made me think they weren’t really interested in -- watching. I don’t know. That might’ve been just me.”

Squeeze around his hand. “Maybe it was just you, and maybe they’re just -- I don’t know, maybe it’s fucking rude but maybe I just think they’re dumb, how about that?”

He can’t help but laugh -- and try to hide it, and he knows he fails because Prompto’s grin only widens.

“But me, I want to know about the parts you wrote. I want all the details.”

“You’ll get them,” Noctis says.

And even the quiet between them -- doesn’t feel like gaps to be filled, as they cross another road and pass through another series of neighborhoods. The rising noise of the balmy clear night, and the voices of people heading out after whatever they’ve been doing indoors. The call of the wind as it sweeps other leaves past his feet, and past Prompto’s.

He doesn’t feel -- anxious to make a better impression. 

He just feels a little bit calmer in his own skin, walking on and watching Prompto’s feet, his steady graceful stride.

And he almost regrets the necessity of ducking into a back alley to get back to his hotel -- but Nyx winks at him -- and then he pushes Prompto into the lobby ahead of Noctis, as if trying to make a point of some kind -- 

“What the actual -- ” But Prompto stops his own last word from coming out -- the woman at the front desk merely smiles, and tilts her head at him, at the exact same angle as the cat in its solid orange bulk, sitting nearly at attention next to her workstation.

Noctis grins, then, helplessly, as Prompto offers his fingertips for the cat’s inspection -- and then scratches it carefully between its large ears.

He’s still waving at the cat as Noctis helps him turn away, and leads him upstairs.

“Been wanting to do something,” he hears Prompto say, from the crumpled heaps of pillows on the bed.

“Yeah?” An ice cube falls out of the full bucket, and he drops it into his own glass, and then he turns back in Prompto’s direction. “What did you want to drink?”

“Ginger ale if you have it, but -- water’s good, too.”

And he fills their glasses quickly, because it was a long afternoon and a long walk and he feels like he’s still wearing too many layers, and only then does he remember -- “Shit, how am I supposed to take care of that flower?”

“This one?” And of course Prompto has the stem carefully curled around the palm of his hand, and down to his wrist, and its blues seem to darken against his freckles, like a startling kind of contrast against the low light of this room and the way it bounces off his skin.

Not a word escapes him, as Prompto methodically strips away the leaves still remaining on the lower half of the stem that bears the flower. As Prompto coaxes the stem into a roughly circular shape, and how does he know how large or how small to make it?

“Thanks,” is what he hears, and Prompto draining the glass, crunching artlessly on a piece of ice cube before dipping his finger into the dregs and tapping it over the points of the petals, leaving sparkling drops wherever he touches. “That should help it last, don’t you think?”

“I don’t even know what you’re doing,” and his words come out wrong, croaky, to his own ears.

“Drink your water, Noctis. Pretty sure if you fell over with heatstroke your bodyguards are going to dismember me or something.”

“They’d never,” and he hurriedly drinks most of the water and the melting ice, never mind the chatter of his own teeth against the glass, against the welcome shock of freezing.

And when he sets the empty glass aside, when he lifts his head, Prompto is -- far too near, rising above him where he’s gotten onto his knees on the bed.

The stem bent into a circle, and the still vibrant flower, that -- Prompto lowers carefully onto his head.

“Not much of a crown, is it? -- but the flower looks good on you, and that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

After that, the smartphone in Prompto’s hands is no longer a surprise, and Noctis smiles at him, as softly as he can, as gently as he can. A smile that lingers beyond the simulated click of shutters. 

“Send me a copy?”

“No.” There’s a quaver in that answer, though, and it makes him lean in closer, until his cheek’s almost touching Prompto’s. 

“Why not?” he asks, gently, making sure he only sounds curious and -- not the strange combination of pleased and piqued that sits in his chest and grows and growls, softly.

Prompto’s smile doesn’t even stretch past his mouth -- but Noctis almost thinks it lights up in his eyes. “This -- this’d just be mine, if you’ll let me, if it’s okay with you. A piece of you I get to keep for myself.”

How could he object to that, when he’s sort of handed Prompto something very much the same, if only in the form of his own inadequate just-from-him words?

And he can content himself with -- stealing a glance at the picture of him that Prompto’s taken. At the flower in his dark hair, draped over his right ear.

“Anyone ever told you you’re beautiful?” he hears Prompto ask, in a whisper that trembles.

“Yes, but no one like you,” he says, and -- “May I kiss you?”

“Yes.” 

It’s a week. It’s too many stolen glances, and too many times he’s caught Prompto looking in his direction. It’s the way Prompto’s eyes go dark and rich and bright when he’s talking about something he’s passionate about. It’s the dance of his hands over his camera, over his smartphone. It’s the way he talks about this place, this city, and Noctis knows neither of them had ever been born here, but maybe this city had always been meant to be the place where they were supposed to meet.

That’s the thought, and it fragments the moment they fall into the kiss.

 _Let this be a beginning,_ and he almost never prays, not any more -- he doesn’t even know who to send this one to -- are there any gods out there to listen to him now? -- but he thinks it anyway, and then he wraps his arms around Prompto and he lets himself fall, into net-sheets, into this simple human warmth -- this offer of Prompto, and he -- wants to offer himself in return --

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr at my FFXV sideblog [@ninemoons42-lestallumhaven](http://ninemoons42-lestallumhaven.tumblr.com/) or at my main [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/) \-- or, hey, if Tumblr becomes too rotten and we can't talk there any more, there's always Twitter, where I am @ninemoons42.


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